


Blood

by ThisIsNotAProfile



Series: Primum Non Nocere [2]
Category: Overwatch (Video Game)
Genre: Angst, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-08-24
Updated: 2016-08-24
Packaged: 2018-08-10 18:23:33
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,104
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7856200
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ThisIsNotAProfile/pseuds/ThisIsNotAProfile
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In war, innocence is the first casualty.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Blood

Bullet holes lined the sides of the tent. The stench of gunpowder, smoke, and blood wafted through the perforations, carried by a gentle evening breeze that made some of the looser threads flutter. Surgical instruments and sterilization equipment lay scattered about the floor - here a scalpel, there a pair of forceps or clamps. The operating table had been upended, and by its side laid a man and a woman, both in surgical scrubs, face masks, and caps. They’d embraced each other in their final moments, but now their muscles were slack, their eyes closed to the world. In one of the man’s hands was a golden locket, spattered with still-wet blood.

Angela could not bring herself to breathe. She stood in the entryway, her arms limp at her sides - she wanted to move, to run, to shout, but her legs felt as though they were weighted with concrete, and air became trapped in her throat. They’d sent her away with one of the nurses at the first sign of the raid, pointing to a nearby hillock and telling her to come back when it was quiet again. She’d flinched as gunfire rocked the camp and hand grenades burst in the dry earth, praying for the silence amidst the shouts and screams of the fighting and dying.

Now it had returned, and she could not bring herself to break it.

“Papa? Mama?”

Her voice cracked, and she cringed, daring to take a single step forward. Her body tingled, as though there was a current running through the earth and up to her heart. She could see blood pooled beneath them on the plastic tent floor, and her next breath was as though needles had filled her lungs.

Her father had talked to her about these things once, during many a sleepless night when she’d badgered him with question after question on the minutiae of human physiology. He’d admitted that they didn’t know and probably never _would_ know what it was like for the patient, but when she pressed him on it, he said it was probably something like a long nap, a kind of lights-out. No stimuli, just a timeless blackness. Looking at them now, she felt as though she were staring into that blackness.

Her knees buckled for a moment before she willed herself on, until finally she could go no further and collapsed next to them. Her shoulders heaved with each breath as her hands fell limp into her lap. When she spoke again, her voice was a dry rasp. “Papa-”

She choked out the second syllable in a half-sob, trying to blink away the tears welling up in her eyes. A sniffle and a hiccough followed, then another, until finally the dam broke and she began to cry. She cried because she hadn’t been there, she cried because they were gone, she cried because she couldn’t _not_ , she cried because they were not just gone, but _stolen from her._

She cried because she had survived.

The nurses would find her there hours later, passed out with the locket clutched to her chest. When they picked her up, it was like she weighed nothing at all.

* * *

When news of the raid made its way up to the general staff, they were ecstatic. Twenty rebels killed, two taken prisoner, and no friendly casualties - a success all around.

Not many bothered to look beyond the body count. Few that did noted the mention in the footnotes of two doctors from the Swiss Red Cross being killed in the crossfire. There were no names.

Some frowned and shook their heads. A pity, they said. A damn shame.

Others shrugged. Collateral damage, they said. It happened with the best-laid plans. Best not to fret over it. After all, they couldn’t very well bring them back to life.

* * *

Their funeral was on a cold and rainy autumn day. Their caskets, carved of oak and mahogany, dripped water off their sides as the storm poured down upon them. In her catatonia, the eulogy was a low and distant drone, the attendees a large black mass. Her focus was on the caskets, hoping against hope that if she willed it hard enough, they would return to her and the whole terrible thing would be called off, that the clouds would part and the sun would shine through and they would leave this place and never return.

And yet it continued.

She was seated in the front row, dressed in her very best, a black ensemble her mother had gotten her the year before. Next to her was a government man with an umbrella - Bäumer was his name. She hadn’t gotten a look at him, hadn’t gotten a look at any of them except when they came up afterwards to offer their condolences. She heard their words, but their meanings escaped her, like they were spoken in a foreign tongue. One by one, they trickled out, until only Bäumer remained with her.

She’d long since stopped caring about the chill. For her, the world ended beyond this plot, beyond this row - there was nothing out there for her now, and there never would be. There were no great triumphs to be had, no dragons to be slain, just a hole in her heart so big it might as well have been torn out of her chest. She wanted to run, to hide - and yet she was still.

Bäumer stood, sadness in his eyes as he turned to face her. _Come now,_ he said. _You’ll catch cold._

The words came to her as though she were floating above it all yet suffocating in the deepest reaches of the earth. _I don’t care._

He frowned, his brow creasing. _Angela,_ he said, reaching out to lay a hand on her back. She squeezed her eyes shut, clutching the locket until she was sure it would embed itself in her skin. The gentlest press from him, and somehow she was on her feet. He took off his coat and draped it over her, turning her around with another gentle press from his hand.

As he led her to the car, she looked over her shoulder at the caskets, watching them shrink into the distance. She wanted to break free of his grip, to rush over across the sodden grass and reunite with them, to save them from entombment, to throw herself against them and never let go. With each step, her heart shattered and mended, shattered and mended, until she felt herself about to collapse.

He helped her into the backseat and buckled her in. Only then could her tears not hide in the rain.

**Author's Note:**

> Originally, this was going to be much more action-y (think something akin to That One Sequence in Assassin’s Creed 3), but I just couldn’t find a way to make it work. To paraphrase Stephen King, the fossil wasn’t coming out that way. So you got this instead.
> 
> Some parts of this were trickier to write than others. If it seems like some sections are there just to get myself into some kind of writing rhythm - well, you’re probably right. 
> 
> Comments, concrit, kudos - all of it does its part to warm my icy black heart. Find any grammatical errors or sentences missing words (yes, there have been occasions where I've gone over my drafts to see I've left entire _words_ out of sentences - I was a copy editor, you think I'd be better than this) and you get 500 words of your choice on whatever you want.
> 
> See you, space cowboy.


End file.
